Topic: Strategies for Reading in the Content Areas.

Topic: Strategies for Reading in the Content Areas

10-second review: This article provides a list of strategies to help students read materials in subjects using textbooks to provide information.

Title: “Content Area Reading Strategy Knowledge Transfer from pre-service to First-year Teaching.” C. Alger. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy (September 2009), pp. 60-69. The secondary school publication of the International Reading Association (IRA).

Summary of the list of strategies:

Cornell Note-taking

Graphic Organizers

K-W-L Chart

Concept Maps

Writing to Learn

Interactive Reading Guide

Concept Definition Mapping

Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DRTA)

Learning Logs

Structured Note Taking

SQ3R

Word Family Trees

Question-Answer Relationships (QAR).

Comment: All of these strategies for reading content material in biology, chemistry, social studies, etc. can be found defined and illustrated online. Simply put the name of the strategy in a search engine like Google or Bing and you will find definitions and illustrations. Don’t pay for this information. You will find links that give this information for free. Keep looking.

Caution: Be sure to try each of these strategies on yourself before trying them on the students. You will be better able to anticipate problems and advantages of each strategy. It might be worthwhile to have students try all of them to decide which techniques help them best to comprehend difficult material. RayS.